memories, shining
by darkcyan
Summary: On a break from university, Arata stops by his old high school. [Contains spoilers through chapter 164; everything after is conjecture.]
Light from the slowly setting sun glinted off the windows of the main building of Fujioka East High School, and Arata's pedaling slowed as he drank in the sight.

Had it really been only a month? It felt like far longer.

The front entrance approached, and he slowed still further, glancing guiltily down the road ahead. His mother was expecting him; had probably already cooked up all his favorite dishes in her excitement at having him back home for a week. He wanted to drop by Yuu's house, too – she'd mentioned she was planning on commuting to a local college, so she'd probably be home –

But surely a few minutes wouldn't hurt?

#

He parked his rented bicycle in the same spot he'd used for the past three years; its presence somehow made the bike racks look even emptier.

Dust stirred lightly in his wake as he approached the main entrance and tried the doors. Locked – no surprise, with the school dark and quiet behind them. What else should he have expected, on a weekend and a holiday?

And why was he feeling so nostalgic, anyway?

He'd liked the school – liked his teachers and his classmates – but he'd spent so much of his time here with his eyes trained on something far away. The Meijin match. Nationals.

Tokyo. Taichi. Chihaya.

He'd thought that moving to Tokyo for university would change things. That maybe he'd finally stop being too far away and a lap behind.

But while he saw Taichi on campus sometimes, it was always in passing, with no time for more than eye contact and an awkward smile. And he hadn't seen Chihaya at all since the last Meijin and Queen matches.

She was still in Tokyo, she'd said, planning on studying to become a teacher. He wondered how her studies were going, but somewhere along the line, it had become too awkward to ask.

He didn't know how to talk to them when they weren't facing each other over the cards; being so close just made him feel farther away than ever.

And everything else was different too – the weather, the noise, the food, the accents of the people surrounding him. Living on his own. Little things, unimportant things – but like faults to an unwary player, they dragged him down, making him wonder if it really had been the right decision to leave.

Life had been simpler, here. His path clearer.

He let his hand fall away to his side and turned away.

Simpler, perhaps. But that phase of his life was over now, and no amount of wistful nostalgia would bring it back.

#

Halfway back to the bike rack, Arata paused, listening. For a moment, he thought he'd heard voices on the breeze. Had he imagined it?

No. There it was, again – indistinct, quieter than the Meijin in a crowded room, but undeniable. From behind the school, he thought.

With another guilty glance at his bike, he turned back.

Other memories struck with unexpected force as he crossed the yard – there, a tree he had sat under during lunch sometimes; over there, they'd gathered shortly after dawn for the trip to Shizuoka.

(Had he done the right thing, sending Chihaya and Taichi that picture? They'd come back – but he doubted that was because of him.)

As he rounded the corner, he heard it again: intermittent, fragmentary shouts, the words still indistinguishable.

The building cast its broad shadow across his path, and motion caught Arata's eye: the slight movement of a curtain covering a half-open window on one of the handful of small buildings – equipment rooms, mostly – that clustered near the back of the school.

"I took a card!"

Arata faltered, then sped up. That was Shun's voice.

"Nice job, Shun! Keep it up!" Hiro.

"Me too!"

"I didn't this time, but I will next time for sure!"

Yamamoto-san and Tsuchiya too.

His team. What were they doing _here_?

He halted just in front of the door, hand hovering above the handle.

Would they even want to see him?

Yes, he'd started the team; had been with them when they took fourth place at Nationals. (Perhaps someday that would feel more like a success than a failure.)

But there was so much more he could have, _should_ have done as captain that he'd only realized after everything was over and it was too late to try again.

That title –

Taichi had borne it with a sort of offhanded grace that made it seem like not a big deal at all, until Arata had seen Chihaya become almost unrecognizable under its weight.

But Arata had worn it like a badge written in a language he didn't understand, going through the motions without understanding their importance.

His team had come as far as they had _despite_ , not because of, his efforts.

What right did he have –

"All right, break time!" Hiro called. "5 minutes, then one last game. How does that sound?"

"Yeah!"

"Tsuchiya, you'll read next – can you re-shuffle the deck?"

"Sure."

"I'm going to go get a drink –" Yamamoto-san's voice, closer, so suddenly that he barely had time to step back, to notice there was nowhere to hide, before the door opened and she was suddenly _there_.

"Wa-"

She stared at him.

He stared back.

Should he say something? He should, he knew he should, but –

"Wa-Wa- _Wataya-senpai_?"

" _What?!_ "

" _Where?!_ "

And there was the rest of his team, too, and Shun and Hiro had pinned him from either side, shouting "Arata-niichan!" and everyone else was smiling even though Yamamoto-san looked a bit like she was about to start crying and –

"Arata-niichan, what are you _doing_ here?" Shun asked, reluctantly releasing him. "Aren't you supposed to be in Tokyo? You didn't drop out, did you?"

"It's Golden Week," Tsuchiya reminded him, eyes rolling.

"I'm just back for the long weekend," Arata confirmed. "I stopped by on the way home, but – what about you guys? Why are you here, instead of at Nagumo?"

"We're all still going there a couple times a week, but we wanted to practice _team_ karuta, too," Hiro said. "Kuriyama-sensei said we could use this building. It's not large, but – come in and see!"

Arata let himself be pulled inside. And yes, the space was small – barely large enough to fit tatami mats for four players and a reader; the walls and what was left of the floor lined with miscellaneous sports equipment.

But it was also warm.

"This is –"

"We're doing a lot better at shouting during our matches!" Hiro said in a rush. "And we talk through them all afterwards, like you did at Nationals, and like we saw the Fujisaki players doing."

"We're hoping we can do practice matches with Fujisaki in the summer again," Mochizuki-san said with a quiet smile. "Even if it is a really long drive."

"Hiro and I are working really hard to get our A rank before then, too," Shun said.

"And the rest of us are all C now," Tsuchiya added.

"We don't know if we can win Nationals this year, either, but we're going to try our best." Mochizuki-san said.

"We'll make you proud, Arata-niichan," Hiro said.

Everyone else nodded firmly, grinning, looking at him with such eyes –

For a moment, they almost outshone his memory of another small room, so many years ago.

He remembered how the Mizusawa team had looked at Taichi when he came back.

Maybe being captain never went away completely. It was too late for him to play alongside them anymore, but maybe it wasn't too late for everything.

(Maybe when he got back to Tokyo he'd ask.)

He swallowed, and did his best to smile back.

"I already am."


End file.
